


Notes and Musings

by CharlieDoyleLoves



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Because I DO WHAT I WANT, Main Character Is An Original Character, Non Binary Character has fluid gender presentation, OC X CANON, Other, Self Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 10:17:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18963256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieDoyleLoves/pseuds/CharlieDoyleLoves
Summary: People can hear the music that their soulmates are listening to. Many people use this to track them. Charlie, or Angelina as she was called earlier in life, was no exception. Even if annoyed her soulmate.Especially if it annoyed her soulmate.





	Notes and Musings

**Author's Note:**

> Of course, the first introduction of my character is an AU. Posted on Tumblr under the same name.

When Charlie was four, still named Angelina, she started to hear the music. It was interesting, listening to music that another was trying to enjoy. Especially since no one around her town would listen to such fancy music, it was all trilling flutes and booming bass.

Not at all like the tang of the guitar or fast-paced fiddle that her family played.

When she asked her mother about it, she was ecstatic.

"It means your soulmate enjoys such music." The darker haired woman pressed a kiss to her small forehead. Running her hands over the girl's hair, she cupped her cheeks before speaking again. "If you hear it often, that means he must be listening to it quite often. You must get used to it, and learn the quirks of it. Find out who plays that and follow it to him."

At four, she didn't question it further. Not until she was six when her parents got her first fiddle from a second-hand store. While her soulmate continued with the more melancholy classical, she knew that her heart needed to balance it out.

Reels and dances were what she wanted to learn. The folk songs that her grandparents and mother played and sang. The ones that caused everyone in the community hall to smile during their festivals and dances. Considering that was how her parents met, it made sense that she and her future husband would do the same.

It was an impressive skill, to be able to play music by ear while also having her soulmates music in her head. It became a tradition for her to practice early in the morning with him. Each was trying to see if they could mess the other up. She could picture the swooping movements of his bow while she plucked and trilled with hers.

Vaguely, she wondered if he could picture the same thing.

The travel to her new home was exciting. Travelling nearly across a country as large as Canada didn't leave much to do. So while everyone was moving slowly with their horses and supplies, she would find the highest point and play her fiddle. She could almost feel his annoyance, but she would sing songs of travel to help him understand what was happening.

In reply, he would play lullabies with her when she went to bed. It was a small moment of victory when she managed to get him to play 'Irish Lullaby' with her though his other songs were just as soothing.

Finally reaching the new settlement in the Prairies, she danced with her family all night. Even at eight years old they knew that it would be a time for celebration. Especially since the next few years would be hard as they had to build their new lives.

She was concerned when she played her folk songs, and there was the sound of an orchestra in her head. He was as skilled as her and didn't seem to mess up.

It was less concerning when she finally got large enough to try her mother's guitar, the violin not having the same tones as her plucking and strumming. She was curious why he was only learning the one instrument instead of branching out. But they had fallen into new patterns, with her and him playing whatever instruments she wanted to complement to him with at the end of her night.

In return, he would play a sweet soothing melody in the afternoon. Such music was odd to hear in the middle of the day, and it only made her curious as to where he was.

A thought crossed her mind when she turned twelve when she heard the unmistakable sound of the opera. Was it possible that her soulmate was not in Canada? When she asked her parents about it, they laughed. It was better than what her mother heard, being the local burlesque performances.

But that only cemented the fact that her soulmate was upper-class. At this fact, her grandmother was thrilled. Her little girl, the only girl in her family was going to be marrying up. Something in her mind recognized that it didn't always work like that. Something from the operas sunk in after all.

Not all destined romances actually happened.

Growing up, she expanded her repertoire of instruments. The banjo was interesting, and she could hear the screech of his violin when she played it for the first time. Apparently, it shocked even her unflappable soulmate.

As she sat upon the little lookout she had built for the field at fifteen, Angelina heard the music of a music box that she could not have with her. It was calming, allowing her rifles to aim to be a bit better against the coyotes that got a little too brave. She wasn't sure if he could hear the gunshots.

She wondered what he would think of it. His soulmate was someone who could put a bullet between animals eyes from 200 feet away. Or that she grew up around the Sharps Rifle that she now had slung around her shoulder.

Sitting back after scaring off the other coyote, she started to hum. It wasn't something that she had heard before, but rather something that should be something her own. After repeating it a few times, she could hear the faint sound of a violin repeating it back to her. Together they played around with the tune.

When she returned home, she picked up her fiddle and repeated to him what he played. Together the two of them performed their duet, complementing each other's notes. A duet that no one else might ever hear.

At sixteen she moved to her Aunts orphanage to help her run it. It was closer to the city and therefore, better education. And better-educated men that might be her soul mate.

The downside was that her music choices became repetitive. A part of her felt bad for the young man, likely trying to keep to his studies, having to listen to the twenty plus children she worked with sing various nursery rhymes. Especially if it really where the middle of the night for him when they were finally let out of their classes for their afternoon.

He played revenge early in her mornings. His violin would screech early in her morning before the rooster would caw on its own. The only way she could get him to shut up was to repeat the proper chords back to her. In that way, he taught her a few more classical feeling songs.

It would be more impressive if she could know what they were called.

When she was twenty, she decided it was time to search out this damn annoying musician in her head. Every few days he would play for hours on end as if there were nothing else he could be doing. Her family noted that it was inappropriate to be travelling as a woman on her own.

With Angelina's Aunt's help, Charlie decided to be something else. Using his fiddle and keeping his trusty pistol Angelina with him, he gathered money as he travelled back to the coast. Playing in pubs and inns for his stay, he wondered what his soulmate would think of him.

Months later, back in Halifax, he worked in a pub. Partially a bartender and partly a player, he was saving money up to head to England. From there, he could figure out where his soulmate was. He just needed to track the opera performances, and it could be done.

He sang to himself softly in his apartment. Lullabies that his mother taught him, songs that the sailors had taught him. The silence was uncomfortable, and he tried desperately to fill it. A violin helped fill in the gaps, and together they figured out tunes and lyrics for them as well.

On one occasion he even sang back, a lullaby about a fox and a dog. While it was calming, Charlie wasn't sure if the ending was all that satisfying.

At twenty-two, he had managed to gather enough money in wage and tips for both the fare to merry ol' England and possibly even a few months rent. 

There was a party for when he left. Songs and dancing until he had to go in the morning. Given how many times "Farewell to Nova Scotia" was played in the past year and a half, his soulmate joined in on the final serenade.

On the ship, he often busked with his fiddle. It was even more hours of playing. Fingers, even though they were heavily calloused, still occasionally bled. By the end of the night, he could hardly stand even the thought of more music. But again, his soulmate played.

Something about it wasn't necessarily wrong, though.

Docking at London, the first thing Charlie did was look for work. An idle moment would not do him well. For a few months, he played no music. In response, or perhaps solidarity, neither did his soulmate.

But walking into the Irish Pub at the edge of the river, far too close for anyone respectable, Charlie knew that he had found his place for a bit. With a reel and a drink poured, he gained employment.

His soulmate started to play in retaliation again.

For a year, he worked the bar and the stage when needed. In the afternoons, before his shifts started, he walked around the richer areas of the city. With his ear open, he tried to find a tune that played twice. But from the open windows, none of them were right.

He read the papers, of course. It helped support the local kids, and he always tipped well. He read those stories published by some doctor about his adventures with a private detective. It reminded her of the stories her parents and grandparents told about Pinkertons.

When a server at the bar went missing, he knew where to turn. As he approached, there was lazy music floating through his head, but it stopped when he got across from his destination. Knocking on the door of the flat, he was greeted by the strange detective and doctor.

"Please, sirs, I don't have much for the service, and I know that her family has less." He thrust his case towards the detective. The man towered over him, judging her from his long nose. "But take my fiddle. It's worth something, and you might be able to cover the services with it at a pawn shop."

It meant something else, though. Something that no one ever talked about. With Charlie's only instrument leaving his possession, he was possibly losing his connection to a soulmate.

"Is this young lady worth it?"

"Any young lady is worth it, sir. Especially one who was doing so much for her son."

And he meant it honestly. If he giving up his soulmate would improve one person's life, then so be it.

In the end, the detective did not take a payment. It seemed like a poor business decision, but he was not going to complain. Especially not when Mary was swept off her feet by the constable that helped her away from the lout she married.

When Mary was officially divorced from her previous husband, the entire bar celebrated. At her request, Charlie had dressed in her nicest skirt and bouse. She was going to be the maid of honour, after all.

Even Ryan was still up, spinning around with his mother as she sang alongside her friend. With celebrations in full swing, they hadn't noticed the faint double of the music. Only when the door opened, and Wilkins, Holmes, and Waston did the pair get assaulted with it.

While Mary spun back around to greet her husband to be, Charlie stood on the stage to the side to figure out which one was hers. Starting another tune on her fiddle, she watched the pair. It was one of the first Reels she had learned.

That was when fate decided that she deserved a break. Soon after she started, there was another that joined in. Holmes was on the other side of the pub, playing the same tune. Smiling from over the heads of the dancers, she amped it up to start playing the song that was uniquely theirs. 

When he caught her eye and joined in, she couldn't help but laugh. Of course, it had to be him.

At least things would be interesting.


End file.
